The Knitter Right Now

Do you ever reach moments in your knitting when you realize your game has shifted along the way? When you have managed to cross a threshold and can look back and realize that you are a different knitter than you were before?

I have discovered, for example, that I have somehow managed to become the sort of knitter who knits cabled aran pullovers on the morning bus commute because “it just has to get done.” If I were another knitter, perhaps the Me-knitter of Some Time in My Past, I might be spending nights agonizing over these cables and devoting truckloads of mental space to them.

But the Me-knitter of Right Now has about a zillion and one things to knit on, and was supposed to have finished this (beautiful, delicious) Portland pullover by now, because the me-knitter of Right Now is in a bargain to have another sweater done by mid-April for Elspeth (so she can knit me the same sweater and we can be twee and matchy like that when I go down to visit). And in theory this should still be fine given that the matchy-twee Elspeth sweater is far more simple and requires no cabling whatsoever, and that Elspeth will probably not care if I am frenetically knitting away on the last sleeve while I am in her presence and/or seconds before I depart her company.

But it does explain why the Me-knitter of Right Now has decided not to care that I messed up establishing the central cable panel on the first sleeve, and that instead of 2-3 inches of neat ribbing I have actually jumped right in and established the cable motif right from the cast-on edge.

It is still pretty. It is an attractive modified design feature. The Me-knitter of Right Now is moving on.

We need to get rid of the rule that says both sleeves have to look exactly the same. That is going to be one gorgeous sweater and it wouldn’t be any more gorgeous if the sleeves weren’t just a wee bit different from each other.

I use design features all the time (usually out of necessity!). You are right – you have gotten to the point in your knitting where your confidence overcomes a need to follow the pattern. Freedom is fun!

The sweater, by the way, is wonderfully rich. You are doing a fabulous job!

Wow, that is a gorgeous sweater. I know what you mean about realizing you’ve upped your game, although I’m not in your league at all. The first couple of times I knit socks, I sweated over each stage and now socks are my mindless knitting projects!

I know what you mean too about reaching new stages in your knitting. For me it was when I learned to knit continental style. This made everything just so much easier than how I’d been knitting for years! (I used to painstakingly pick up and wrap the yarn around the needle with my right hand – in fact my mom still does it this way).

Personally, I think ribbing is overrated any way. 😉 Seriously, not a big fan of it, esp. at the waist, esp. on machine made sweaters and sweat shirts. I’m short waisted and, er, *round* — the ribbing doesn’t sit far enough down and I get extra bulk right where I don’t really need it. There was a reason I wanted to learn to knit, and it’s primarily so that I can get things that *fit*.

Love the cables right from the edge. If you don’t tell us it was an inspired design change, we’ll never know.

i have a sort of unspoken rule about cable knitting – i don’t know why because it doesn’t stand for other knitting (like lace, for example) but if i’m knitting a cabled piece, especially a large-scale one like a sweater, i deliberately will mismatch a cable or two (unless, it happens to happen by accident and i notice – there will be the usual internal debate about whether or not it greatly affects the finished product). the reason? it’s like a signature, a way of making the garment my own.

Love that purple yarn!!
Don’t you love the place you’re in right now? Amazing when that happens…I kind of watched myself do that one time with a lace shawl. Suddenly, it felt like I’d reached a whole new level. (Not sure I still have it at this point, but there it was…!)

ther is no such thing as knitting police and if there is tell them to find something else to do It was an orignal design idea and looks great and hey who asekd to them to invade your personal space anyway.’

Those cables are gorgeous! I’m definitely not at the point where I can do stuff like that without painstakingly checking and rechecking the pattern every row to make sure I’m doing everything right, but it’s seriously awesome that you are! Great job.

Love the Portland! Love the cables starting right at the cuff instead of above ribbing.

As for the two sleeves not matching … unless you’re going somewhere and will be handcuffed with wrists in front of you … who’s going to notice? Okay, maybe if you’re playing Rachmaninoff on a concert grand piano and it’s being broadcast worldwide (live) and the camera will be concentrating on your amazing keyboard skills. Just wear something else on those occasions!

I once knit a top-down raglan for my teensy little grandmother, doing both sleeves because I was afraid I’d run out of yarn. I did, at just-above-wristbone length, but when she put on the sweater, one sleeve was definitely bracelet-length and the other came down to cover the wristbone. It was at that point she told me — 92 years old — “Oh, my arms have never been the same length.”

[…] doing it. And I was suitably astonished at this, and sat down (as I was happily whizzing away on my Portland pullover, cable-needle-free) and showed her how I do it. I think she has actually done an even better job […]